Hello, Dreamwidth! I know: it's been ages since the last news post. There are many reasons, all of them tedious and boring and basically boiling down to being so ready to see the backside of 2016. (Seriously, at this point I think we may need to drive a stake through this year's heart and bury it in a silver coffin at the crossroads by the light of the full moon.) I'd been hoping to write you one of our usual chatty updates to let you know what we've been up to (we have been doing stuff! it's very interesting stuff!) but various and sundry tedious boring things have meant I didn't have the time before departing tomorrow on the extended vacation my wife and I are taking to ritually cleanse 2016 from our lives...

I do have some news that I wanted to share before departure, though! Many of you have already noticed it, but for those of you who haven't or who are new here: the December holiday points bonus has been active since the beginning of December. All orders of paid time or points made in the Dreamwidth Shop during the month of December will receive a 10% points bonus to spend or save for the future. For instance, if you buy a 12-month paid account (350 points), you'll get another 35 points once the order is complete for you to use on a future order. This bonus only applies to orders of paid time or points -- bonus icons and rename tokens don't receive points bonuses. If you buy paid time or points for a friend, the bonus points will go to you, not to them.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW: When we say "the month of December", that goes by server time, which is in UTC. It's not midnight your local time zone! (For people in Pacific time, for instance, the promotion ends at 4PM on 31 December.) Every year a few people get bitten by this, so if you're planning on buying paid time during December, it's best to do it on 30 December or before.

We do this promotion every December as a way to say "thank you" to everyone who supports us. We're a tiny company with no outside investors, no venture capitalist money, and no advertising (anywhere): your payments are what lets us keep offering the site to everyone. Since our income comes entirely from you, you know that the decisions we make are always and only for you, not for advertisers, marketers, or the people who hold the purse strings. You're what lets us keep this place running, and we love you for it.

I hate to post and run, but I'll be leaving you all in the eminently capable hands of mark, karzilla, and alierak for the next few weeks while Sarah and I investigate ways to exorcise the fetid corpse of this bloody year. Happy holidays, whichever of them you're celebrating, and I'll be back in 2017 with a run-through of what we've been up to lately.

(Comment notifications may be delayed for up to an hour or two, due to the high volume of notifications generated after an update is posted to dw_news. This was posted at 3:35AM EST (see in your time zone). Please don't worry about delayed notifications until at least two hours after that.)